Question

So I am trying to parse a date string in Java. I am getting the correct hours back but the minutes seem to be out by about 5-10. I am showing my code below along with the input string and the date Objects toString() output.

Any ideas where I am going wrong? This is on Android so I would prefer not to use JodaTime.

DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSS'Z'"); 

Date date = sdf.parse(input);

return date;

Input String = 2012-11-07T12:47:05.0581816Z

Date toString() = Wed Nov 07 12:56:46 GMT 2012 (Milliseconds = 1352293006816)

Answer 1

You are trying to parse a date with microsecond precision as millisecond precision.

0581816 is the number of milliseconds added to the time 12:47:05, not, as you probably expect, a decimal fraction of a second.

Since the precision below millisecond cannot be represented by java.util.Date, the simplest option would be to truncate the decimal fraction and adjust the date format, as follows:

final DateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'");
String input = "2012-11-07T12:47:05.058234234Z";
input = input.replaceFirst("(?<=\\.\\d{3})\\d+", "");
System.out.println(input);
System.out.println(sdf.parse(input));